


John in Wonderland and Other Short Stories

by michi_thekiller



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Alice in Wonderland, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Gryffindor John, M/M, Potterlock, Schoolboys, Slytherin Sherlock, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-10
Updated: 2013-10-11
Packaged: 2017-12-26 05:28:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/962131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/michi_thekiller/pseuds/michi_thekiller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Treat this like a pulp fiction serial. This is a collection of short stories (some of them very short) written on <a href="http://traumachu.tumblr.com">my tumblr</a>, posted here for ease of reading. Most are based on art (that you will see in the chapters!) and some are based on prompts. Each chapter is a one-shot with no plans for continuation (sadly, there is far too much on my plate already!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. John in Wonderland

**Author's Note:**

> Picture is by [Panda](http://kazekagays.tumblr.com/) and posted lovingly with her permission. Go check out her [amazing art](http://kazekagays.tumblr.com/arttag) on tumblr! [Reblog link is here](http://traumachu.tumblr.com/post/52296639527/sluglock-mad-hatterlock-and-john-in) if you have a mighty need for wonderlock on your blog.

[ ](http://68.media.tumblr.com/15f96822a0838de2b75155b4ebf709bd/tumblr_mnwei7ptWq1qg8tt4o1_1280.jpg)

_(click to enlarge)_

  


~*~

Out in the middle of a grove, splattered and splotched with shadows, there sat a familiar little table set out underneath a large tree. John recognised it as the kitchen table that they - he - had had at Baker Street, that had been far too damaged from acid burns and scratch marks to sell. He had left it behind in the flat when he moved out, the same way that he’d left most of the things there. They had never belonged to him in the first place, but at some point during his time at 221B he had stopped thinking of them as  _Sherlock’s_  and had started to think of them as  _ours_. Sometimes he thought about them still -  _his_  chair,  _my_  chair,  _our_  rug,  _our_  kitchen table - and tried not to think the word  _abandoned._

It was strange to see the table here now, in this intrepid new world of the upside-down, but no stranger than anything else John had encountered that day. (Was it still the same day? Or had time turned on its axis as well, like a giant hourglass? Had it tipped over and stopped, grains of sand sitting still, the flow gone static?) The table called to him with magnetic attraction, north pole to south pole, and John found himself answering its alluring beckon, aware of the feeling of motion before he was even aware of the movement of his own feet.

 _Home,_  said the table, said the sort of tug buried deep, it seemed, within John’s gut.

_Come home._

As John walked toward it, the table seemed to increase in size - not in the logical way, of course, that all things increased in size as you approached, but in the illogical way, as in the table seemed to be stretching and growing. Half of the table was set out for tea: dainty porcelain dishes, gleaming forks and spoons, dishes of clotted cream and butter and jam that glistened like wet rubies. Clutter sprawled over the other half: scientific glassware and heavy textbooks, slides and petri dishes, mould samples in green and orange and blue, rotting specimens and putrid human remains. It was highly unsanitary and highly inedible. It was enough to make any normally-functioning person sick. It was enough to make John homesick.

 Somewhere in the middle the two categories merged, resulting in some macabre chimeras of items: experiments that looked like food, food that looked like experiments.  As John approached, he noticed more items: one bowl full of pills labelled “ _EAT ME_ ”, with a smiling skull printed on the label. Next to that there was an identical bowl full of pills labelled, “ _DO NOT EAT ME,”_   with a frowning skull printed on the label. There was a bowl full of bright red apples, all of them carved into with random letters and symbols. John could make out the letters:  _O_ ,  _U, I,_ in no particular order.

In the middle of the table, serving both as a dish and a centrepiece, was a realistic human skull - which, upon closer inspection, appeared to be made out of sugar. It was displayed face-up, fractured on one side, hairline cracks spidering out in a delicate web from the point of impact.  Jam seeped out, sticky and dark red, between some of the larger cracks.

A look down the now-very long table revealed something John had somehow managed to miss from afar - sitting in one of the armchairs, was Mrs. Hudson asleep at the table, with her place set for tea.

“John,” said a voice so familiar, and there was his name in that voice so familiar, that it seemed to have come only from his subconscious. “You’re just in time for tea.”

John turned, half-afraid to, half-afraid not to.

He was afraid of what he might find. He was afraid of what he might not find.

“Sherlock!” John said, gasped it even, and then, because he was in shock: “You look  _ridiculous.”_

Because Sherlock? (Could it be Sherlock, really, Sherlock, suddenly, Sherlock?) - well, whoever it was, standing in front of him, Sherlock-clone or Sherlock’s long-lost-twin brother or not-Sherlock, what-have-you - there was no denying that he did look ridiculous.

He was wearing a giant multi-coloured polka-dotted bow tie and a large green top hat, for starters.

He also looked ridiculous in the general way that Sherlock had always looked, all dark curls and long limbs, skin like alabaster and eyes of indeterminate colour; those features that were off-putting in one light and then unearthly in another. No one could possibly look like that, and the familiarity of it all made John feel like his insides were being wrung out.

“You haven’t had tea for a while,” not-Sherlock said. It was true: never finishing the pot of tea, always pouring out the second cup. Tea made John think too much. Too many cases mulled over tea, blog entries tapped out to a hot cuppa; and then there were quiet moments besides: the two of them at home at any given evening, Sherlock’s tea going cold while he worked on an experiment but insisting that John make it for him regardless, every time. And then, in the empty time after: too many cups of tea brewed just for the sake of something resembling normal, and then the fear that one cup, John all by himself, would become normal again. There were the evenings where he sat looking into the steam, into the cup, like it could tell him what his future held, like he could watch the past play out, until it went cold in his hand. He would end up pouring it down the sink. He had felt himself all poured out. It was such a waste.

So he had stopped drinking tea.

“John, sit down. Have some tea,” not-Sherlock said, in an encouraging tone, and poured John a cup.

“Now I know you’re not Sherlock,” John said. “He’s never made me tea.”

“Technically, Mrs. Hudson made it,” not-Sherlock said. “I’m only here to take the credit.”

John looked over at Mrs. Hudson, still comfortably asleep in her chair.

“I made you coffee once,” not-Sherlock said.

“You thought you were drugging me for an experiment!” John rebuked.

“Still,” said Sherlock, with just a hint of a smile. “I do believe that counts.” 

He placed a hand on John’s shoulder - warm and solid and real - the cup of tea held out in his hand. When had he gotten so close? John felt himself stop for a moment, breath caught; caught off-guard by the familiar features and by the almost-hungry look in Sherlock’s eyes. He felt completely caught by the look in Sherlock’s eyes.

It was too much. John, his lungs tightening and needing air, took a step back.

“You can’t be Sherlock,” he accused, shaking his head. “You can’t. He’s…” he stumbled over the word, heavy and clogging in his throat.

“Dead,” John forced himself to say, one syllable thudding on his tongue. “Sherlock, you’re dead.”

“Dead, interesting,” said Sherlock, placing the cup of tea down on the table. “Dead is such a subjective term. By definition: No longer living, deprived of life. And yet here I stand before you.”

“Yes,” John said. “I can see that.”

“Perhaps a being can be dead and living at the same time.”

John laughed. He couldn’t help it. “Like Schrodinger’s cat?”

“Yes, exactly that,” Sherlock said, and smiled. “John Watson’s Sherlock.”

John wasn’t quite sure how to react to that.

He found himself grabbing at Sherlock’s wrist; Sherlock let him. His skin was warm and dry to the touch, just as skin should be. John placed two fingers over where the radial artery ought to be, and thought, for one horrid moment, that he would feel nothing, Sherlock’s body still warm but blood bright red on the pavement, skull shattered as if it were sugar and thick red seeping out and—

And there, beneath John’s fingers, there it was: the answering pulse, the push of an artery against his fingertips, the answering beat of Sherlock’s functioning heart, the blood coursing through his body.

John inhaled sharply, and held Sherlock’s wrist tight, pressed his fingers in hard, until he occluded the pulse completely and could not feel it anymore.

“Have you found what you’ve been looking for?” asked Sherlock.

“Sherlock,” John breathed, and looked up at him. “Is it really you?”

“Real is such a subjective term,” said Sherlock. “What is real? Reality can be a matter of perception. I think, therefore I am. Am I here, right now, with you? I think I am, and you think I am, so that much must be true. Unless of course, you don’t believe. Don’t you believe in me, John?”

“Yes,” John said, quickly and without hesitation. “Yes, of course I do.” He always had, after all.

He was still holding onto Sherlock’s wrist. He really ought to let it go, he knew, but he couldn’t make his fingers release, not just yet.

Instead he looked down at the table again, and noticed yet another guest he had somehow missed before.

“Is that rabbit  _wearing a hat_?” John asked.

“Obviously,” said Sherlock, as if this were a very normal reality. Although, to be fair, the little rabbit glowing like a fairy had been part of a very real reality.

Bluebell sat on the table, nibbling at cake, glowing faintly as if in response.

John let out an involuntary giggle, squeezed out from the tension in his chest. It sounded far too bright and wrong to his ears, but he couldn’t recapture it once it had wormed its way out.

Sherlock’s pale eyes were completely focused on him. They looked blue, and then they shifted green, here in the shadows of the forest.

When had Sherlock gotten so close?

“I feel like I’m going mad,” John whispered.

“Oh,  _John_ ,” Sherlock said, and brushed his fingers, cool and gentle, over John’s cheek. “We’re all mad here.”

 

 

 


	2. First Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning! Shounen ai schoolboy AU, and all that entails
> 
> I couldn’t make myself write Sherlock-san or Sherroku-senpai or John-kun, so please imagine that if you want ;;;;

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Picture is by the lovely [Miri.](http://iriarty.tumblr.com) I love Miri a lot, she is such a sweetheart and [draws such wonderful things](http://iriarty.tumblr.com/tagged/%5Emy-art%5E), and she doesn't have nearly enough followers! If you enjoy this, please go follow her! [Reblog link is here](http://traumachu.tumblr.com/post/52149369535/iriarty-this-is-for-you-lovely-michi-who) for those of you who want schoolboys on your blog. 
> 
> [Listen to this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQfEP9KSJt8) while reading. It sets the mood.

 

 

The air was crisp that bright Thursday morning, and the birds were singing from the telephone wires, and John was muttering to himself like someone gone mad.

“What a coincidence,” John said, and then, “No! No, that’s not it.”

He looked at his watch:  _6:15._ Same as when he’d last glanced at it, 30 seconds ago.

Sherlock would be rounding the corner at any moment now.

John looked at his reflection in the bakery window. “Hey!” he said brightly. “What a coincidence!”

No, no, no. Not casual enough. Not cool at all.

Every morning Sherlock left his house at 6 am in order to make homeroom by 7. You could set your watch by Sherlock’s morning schedule, not that John ever would, of course; but it was a  _possibility._

The key thing was not to look like a stalker, John thought, as he peered around the corner for any sign of Sherlock. The street was empty and quiet in the early morning, disturbed only now and again by a passing car.

“What a  _coincidence,”_  he said, and tried what he thought might be a smooth smile. Oh, no. That just looked sleazy. He was creeping himself out with that one - not to mention the bakery owner who, upon spying him through the glass, gave him an extremely odd look.  

“It’s not for you!” John attempted to explain, over-exaggerating the words so that he could be understood through the glass. “I wasn’t talking to you!”

The bakery owner shook his head, wide-eyed, quickly put down his large tray of fresh rolls and hot cross buns, and fled the scene, faintly panicked.

John sneaked another peek at his watch.  _6:17._ He looked around the corner again - carefully, now; if he looked at the moment Sherlock was coming up the street he was sure to be seen - but a quick glance showed nothing more exciting than 85-year-old Mrs. Fujita, on her morning jog, and a little white cat that trotted across the street.

“Oh, what  _a_  coincidence!” John said to himself. No, that wasn’t it, either.

“Hey!” John tried, and feigned a look of surprise that he couldn’t really see, because he didn’t want to risk using the bakery window again. “What a coincidence!”

Maybe. Getting close. But it was hard to tell if the surprise was subtle enough, or whether he looked like he’d just gotten shocked from an electrical socket.

 _6:18._  Quick look around the corner - in a manner that was not unlike playing secret agent spy - still no sign of Sherlock. Where could he be? It wasn’t like him to be late.

Now John was starting to worry. What if Sherlock wasn’t going to school this morning? What if he was sick? Or worse, what if something had happened to him?

What if he had run into bullies, or stray dogs, or what if he had gotten abducted by a serial killer cabbie?

Not to sound crazy or anything.

“Now this  _is_  a coincidence,” John muttered to himself as he scanned the street. No, that didn’t sound suspicious in the least.

John sighed and ran his hand through his short blond hair. He checked his watch.  _6:20._ Another ten minutes and he’d have to get going himself, if he didn’t want to be late for school. The street was empty save for a man in his slippers who had stepped out of his house to get the paper, his open robe flapping out behind him like a cape in the wind, giving the rest of the street an abundant eyeful in the early morning.

There was always tomorrow, John told himself. It was okay. It wasn’t like he was disappointed or anything like that, that would be silly.

“John,” said a sudden voice from behind him; resonant and deep and familiar.

John turned around instinctively at the sound of his name, to find Sherlock standing there, his dark hair outlined by golden sun in the early morning light.

John opened his mouth to speak, and in doing so apparently deleted his entire vocabulary in an instant. His tongue dried up inside his mouth and his vocal chords failed him. His brain stuttered, he couldn’t even get his mouth to stutter because it hadn’t even gotten to that stage, and his heart was puttering away in his chest.  

There was something he was meant to say, something important, something cool!

There were meant to be words. What were words? There were blank spaces and nothingness where words were meant to be.

He opened his mouth again, but nothing came out. He probably looked like an idiot, damn it all to hell.

Sherlock smiled at him, as if he weren’t an idiot at all. It was an obvious lie, but Sherlock’s smile was warm and perhaps only the slightest bit amused.

“What a coincidence,” Sherlock said.


	3. What You Need

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I was prompted: drinking/drunk headcanon/fic. Have a little preslash with it, with a smattering of angst.

John was usually a careful drinker; too wary of the thirst programmed into his genes. Harry’s stints in rehab, her cyclical addiction, was enough to turn anyone off. When Sherlock had first come home he’d found the bottles, in their cabinets and in the refrigerator, where his experiments used to be. He had done them both the favour of catapulting them out the window, which only earned him the rather mild rebuke of “Sherlock, that’s dangerous!”  
  
Sherlock was prone to excess in all things, but alcohol had never been his drug of choice. Heroin was far more pleasant; no nasty hangover the next day.  
 **  
**

Of course there were always exceptions. It was the first solved case since Sherlock’s return, and Lestrade had invited them out to the pub afterwards with the rest of the Yarders to celebrate. Sherlock could not imagine anything more interminably dull, but he took one look at John’s face, flushed and happy and alive, and the next thing he knew he was sitting on a stool, hand clenched tightly around a glass full of scotch.  John was laughing at something Lestrade had said, the sight of him brilliant in the dim, dirty crowd.

John was a terrible lush. His predilection for alcohol showed in the false euphoria it gave him, how he found the slightest cliched wordplay hilarious, and how, horrifyingly, it even made him  _sing_.

 ****  
 _"And I went down to the demon-stration,"_  John sang along with the song blaring tinnily from the speakers overhead.  _"To get my fair shares of abuse… Singing, ‘We’re gonna vent our frus-tration…And if we don’t, we don’t blow a 50-amp fuse,’ yeah."_  
  
It was disgraceful, really. John was probably two drinks away from dancing on the bar.  
  
"Sherlock," John slurred, slinging an arm around Sherlock’s shoulders. "You’re alive! Drink with me."  
  
"I  _am_  drinking, isn’t that obvious,” Sherlock said, indicating his mostly-full glass.  
  
"That’s not drinking!" John said, scoffing. _“This_  is drinking,” he said, and demonstrated by knocking back the rest of his drink.  
  
One and half. John was now one and a half drinks away from dancing on the bar.  
  
Sherlock raised an eyebrow, and then he raised his glass. He promptly emptied it.  
  
"Not bad," John allowed, leaning in even closer. His breath was hot, heady and alcoholic against Sherlock’s cheek. "Sherlock Holmes, I am going to drink you  down. I mean, I am going to take you under the table." ****  
  
"I believe you’re mixing metaphors," Sherlock said, nonetheless amused.  
  
"I"m going to be mixing drinks!" John declared, unfazed as usual. "Bartender, another round, for me and my friend!" ****  


Two drinks later, John was not dancing on the bar. Perhaps if he could have gotten up he might have. At the moment he was rather precariously balanced, swaying a little, as if to the horrid bar music. A young lady approached, doubtless to ask John to buy her a drink, and if Sherlock slipped an arm around John’s waist, it was only to keep him from falling off the stool.

"Oh!" she said, grinning at them. "I’m sorry…I didn’t realise. Nevermind, then."

 ”I wonder what that was about,” John said, settling comfortably back, slumping a little against Sherlock’s side for the support.

 ”She was looking for her phone,” Sherlock said. “She realised she’d had it all along when it vibrated in her pocket.”

"People are silly," John decided. "And you’re brilliant."

Four drinks later and even Sherlock was feeling charitable. That was dangerous. It meant that people got away with extreme idiocy without ever being informed of it. The world would surely go to ruin. The alcohol warmed him from inside, however, and gently slowed his thoughts, and he was aware of a pleasant warmth on one side of his body, where John half-slumped, resting against him. The world could go to ruin for an evening, perhaps.

“You should probably get him home while he can still walk,” said Lestrade, and Sherlock scowled, reminded of what a terrible idiot Lestrade was.

"I can still walk!" said John, and he slid off the stool to prove it and nearly broke his nose in the process. Lestrade stumbled forward and caught him, just in time.

"You’re a good man, Greg," John said. And then, to further extend his outlandish gratitude. "I think I love you, Greg."

“Right, time to go home,” said Sherlock tightly. “Come along, John.” He tugged on John’s arm, not in a particularly forceful way, really, but then found this action caused the opposite reaction of John stumbling and sprawling up against him.

“Okay, Sh’rlock,” John said, blinking up at him agreeably. He was smiling as if Sherlock were something of a marvel, that look that he got sometimes when Sherlock had done something particularly clever, only he hadn’t at all. He had only said that they should go home. It felt a bit unfair to take credit.

Sherlock cleared his throat and dragged him outside into the chill night air.

 

The first few cabs they saw, Sherlock let pass, as they were possibly connected to an underground drug smuggling ring. John leaned up against him for support, humming the tune that he’d been singing earlier.  

“You shouldn’t have had so much to drink,” chastised Sherlock. “Your metallisation…metbatolism..metabolic rateof alcohol can’t be very high, due to your small stature.”

John giggled. “Metal-batism? Who’s the drunk one again?”

“You are,” said Sherlock decisively, although he was not so sure. Looking at John in the glow of the streetlight was making his head spin.

He’d never had alcohol on its own, really, without the accompaniment of heroin or cocaine. It was not a bad experience, insofar that he could tell.

“So what, I’m short and drunk,” John said, giggling a little again. “At least I’m not  _tall_  and drunk.”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Sherlock said, although he was appalled at his own slightly petulant tone.

“Sherlock,” John said warmly, his voice low, almost cooing in his throat. Suddenly Sherlock was very aware of John pressed up against him, clinging to him with both hands, fingers curled into his coat, and the intense warmth of their bodies pressed together, the heat of him, soaking through their clothes. He could see the reflection of the streetlights in his eyes, shining and midnight blue  in the low light, the colour of the sky above them; his pupils were dilated, his cheeks flushed bright. The beloved lines of his face, the gentle little wrinkle of his nose and brow with confusion, and the parting of his lips as he sucked in a sharp breath. Their faces were very close together, and Sherlock could feel the hot alcoholic-tinged steam of his breath, of both their breaths, in a shared soft cloud between them-

 

“Oh!” said John suddenly. “Here’s a cab.”

Right. There was a cab, and they had to get back home, and this was why Sherlock had despised alcohol, he realised, because it completely disrupted his proper thought processes.

They climbed into the cab together, with a little struggle and some interesting choreography, because John had somehow forgotten how to work his limbs. As they sat down John lay his head back, closing his eyes.

“Oh, God, I shouldn’t have had so much to drink,” John bemoaned as the cab lurched forward.

“So I’m right,” Sherlock said, who could never resist an opportunity for I-told-you-so.

“You’re always right. Doesn’t it get annoying?” John asked him. “You’re annoying, Sherlock. It’s very annoying.”

Sherlock looked at him, horribly affronted. Alcohol made John annoying, he decided.

“Well, I can’t help it if I lack the idiocy required to know the non-annoying state of being wrong,” Sherlock said scathingly.

John cracked open one eye to take in his expression, which apparently inspired insolent laughter. He collapsed against Sherlock in a fit of giggles. Sherlock really didn’t see what was so terribly amusing, and hated alcohol even more.

“Oh,” John said, sighing as the giggles ran themselves out. “I missed you.”

Sherlock felt an answering tumbling in his stomach that may or may not have had to do with the cabbie’s driving.  

“Hm?”

“I missed…” John mumbled. Curled up against Sherlock’s side, with his head leaning over and resting on Sherlock’s shoulder, he had fallen fast asleep.

Sherlock very carefully shifted his hand behind John’s back, so that his fingers curled, just at the edge of John’s hip. John sighed and shifted in closer.

They drove around London, taking the long way back to Baker Street to rack up the meter. Sherlock did not call attention to it.

John slumbered peacefully on. Sherlock listened to his breathing, felt the rise and fall of his chest against his body. He found himself humming along, unthinkingly, to a song on the radio. The tune was very familiar.

“It’s a good song, eh mate?” said the cabbie. “Come on, sing along, here comes the chorus.”

He reached over and turned up the radio.

“ _No you can’t always get what you want_ ,” the cabbie sang, “ _No, you can’t always get what you want…oh, you can’t always get what you want…but if you try sometimes, you just might find…you get what you need._ ”


	4. Always

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **!!!!!WARNING!!!!!**
> 
>  
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>  
> 
> **SPOILERS FOR[ Of a Castle, Dreaming ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/706431) **
> 
>  
> 
> **as if you didn't know that this is how it's going to end anyway**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Picture is by the amazing [Deni](http://johnnybooboo.tumblr.com)!! [HERE TO REBLOG](http://traumachu.tumblr.com/post/50100731149/johnnybooboo-subtle-shit-idk-can-you-tell-its)

The Gryffindor dormitories were horrendously and predictably outfitted in garish red and gold. To look was to be nauseated; prolonged exposure surely would be enough to drive one mad. This would be logical explanation for the behaviours of most Gryffindors. Sherlock himself would have been suffering a headache (at least) this very morning, if not for the fact that he currently had an unclothed John Watson nuzzling his throat.

“I hope they executed the decorator responsible for these crimes against humanity,” Sherlock said. “I hope he was decapitated and his head placed upon a pike for the crows to pick at, as a warning to all future school dormitory decorators.”

“Oh, Sherlock,” John said, and gave an exaggerated moan, “I do so love it when you talk interior design to me. That’s so  _dirty_.”

He dropped a kiss on the line of Sherlock’s jaw.

“I’ve been in these rooms for seven years. This is the first time you’ve ever commented,” John noted, with amusement.

“I’ve never had a reason to spend any prolonged amount of time in them before.”

“You must have a very good reason now, to subject yourself to the horror of such awful decor,” John said, cuddling on top of him. It was not a bad position for him to be in, all things considered. It was particularly nice to consider the way their bodies rubbed together whenever John shifted around.

“I suppose it’s adequate enough,” Sherlock said. He was eying John’s mouth, and the indecent way John was currently running his tongue over his top lip. “May I one day, with any hope, recover fully from the retinal damage.”

“When did you first start liking me?” John wanted to know.

Sherlock sighed and rolled his eyes, abruptly losing all interest in the conversation. He was especially uninterested in any conversations where John stopped doing interesting things with his mouth and wanted to do _boring_  things with it, like talking about sentimental matters. He made a sound that could have been loosely interpreted as “Do we really have to do this?” He would have much rather slept, which was saying something. Or had sex again, of course, which should always be included on any list of options when options were available (and even when they weren’t).

“I’ll tell you when I first knew,” John said, wriggling a little, which admittedly caused Sherlock to regain some of the lost interest. “Right after the Yule Ball. You kissed me under the mistletoe. And I knew, and I didn’t want to know, so I pretended I didn’t know, and I spent so much telling myself otherwise, but…it was, as you say, so obvious.”

“Must have been some kiss,” Sherlock observed.

“It really wasn’t. I think you’ve greatly improved now.”

“Hm,” said Sherlock, and kissed him, so that they could have some evidence for comparison.

“You’re not distracting me that easily,” John said when he pulled away,  and he nipped playfully at Sherlock’s lip as punishment. He was smiling and his eyes were bright and his cheeks were flushed and he was panting a little, soft little huffs of breath between them. It was enough to make a man want to kiss him again. Devious.  “Now you go. When did you know you first wanted me?”

Logically, Sherlock figured, the sooner he gave John what he wanted, the sooner he could get what  _he_  wanted. He relented.

“Remember when you first asked to be my partner in Potions?”

“You said no,” John said, brow furrowing at the memory. “You told me I would only muck things up.”

“Right then,” Sherlock told him. “Right that very moment.”

“Sherlock, we were  _eleven._ ”

“I have always been, as you remember, a precocious child.”

“So all this time—” John said.

“Well,” said Sherlock, “You  _have_  always been a bit slow on the uptake.”

 

 


End file.
